


Carved in Time

by dawnstruck



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Mentions of Character Death, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 21:50:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawnstruck/pseuds/dawnstruck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin never returns. No one is overly surprised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carved in Time

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains spoilers for 5x12 and 5x13 and picks up immediately after.  
> It depicts Gwen's course as Queen of Camelot and the many years that follow after the events of the series.
> 
> EDIT: This work has been translated into Vietname at https://vamkidminh.wordpress.com/2015/07/25/merlinguinevere-carved-in-time/

 

 

 

Merlin never returns.

No one is overly surprised.

Percival carries back the grief of Gwaine's death and the news that when he reached the shores of Avalon he found marks in the grass but that there were no tracks to follow. Merlin had simply disappeared.

Gwen might have hoped... they all might have hoped... But now that she has put together all the pieces, she remembers Merlin's speeches of destiny and thinks that maybe his work here is done.

 

Gaius dies in winter.

Old and weary and worn down by the losses in his life.

Gwen sits by his side and holds his weathered hand as he takes his last breaths, because she wishes she could have done the same for her husband.

She counts his shallow heart beats, one for everyone she has lost herself; friends and family and lovers.

Mother. Father. Morgana. Lancelot. Elyan. Gwaine. Arthur. Merlin.

A faint smile ghosts over Gaius' pale lips and then he is gone.

Only Guinevere remains in the darkness of his chambers.

 

It is a lonely life in Camelot.

She keeps herself busy and surrounded by people.

Leon is there, the boy she used to serve when she was just a girl, the boy she grew up with, the boy who now bows to her and calls her milady.

He is kind and brave and a good advisor and she would be lost without him.

When Lord Grenwell seeks to wed his daughter, Guinevere relays the proposal to Leon. He agrees with a mere nod. And then he is gone, too.

 

She's barren.

She had feared as much when she had been trying to give Arthur a son during the early months of their marriage. They had never talked about it, but she loathed to think that for the sake of their love he had been cheated both out of a princess's dowry and an heir.

Now she is grateful for it. Some of her lords and advisors pressure her to marry again, but what good would it do when there won't be a successor either way.

No one objects. She is a queen who has known servitude and exile, the iron rule of Uther Pendragon and the gentle love of his son. She wins wars and composes contracts. Instead of a child she carries within her Arthur's dream of uniting the kingdoms.

 

Percival dies in battle.

The other knights say it's what he would have wanted. Gwen knows that he wouldn't have wanted to die in the first place, even if his strategies ensured their victory.

Triumph tastes like bitter ashes on her tongue when they burn his corpse on a pyre. When the smoke has diminished, she looks around and realizes that there is no one left.

During her years as a maid the other servants had often shunned her for her close relationship with Morgana and later Arthur. She has a kingdom to rule, a city to defend and not a friend to spare.

The crown on her head is heavy, the royal sigil a painful reminder, and all the gold in the world could not be worth less.

 

After her conquest of Mercia she rides through the gates, beautiful and stern, her gown as crimson as the banners her knights have carried into the city.

The people don't cheer. They are wary and tired of siege and hunger, her offer of peace cheap in the face of yet another self-righteous ruler.

Guinevere keeps her head held high, bold and unafraid of arrows and assassins, but unwilling to look into the haggard faces, the resentful glares and hollow stares.

She does not notice the old woman until she is gripping her horse's bridle and bringing her to a stop, closing her pergament fingers around the warrior queen's smooth hands.

"Milady," the woman rasps, seeking her gaze with unfathomably blue eyes, "Do not fret. This path you follow was laid to your feet by destiny herself. Never forget that."

"Step away from the queen, wench," Ser Boras warns, hand on his sword.

A moment later the old crone has let go of Guinevere's hand and disappeared in the crowd.

Only later does it occur to Gwen that the wrinkled face seemed unsettingly familiar.

 

She never lifts the ban on magic.

Instead she chooses to slowly let it fade from her people's memory.

She hangs raiders and murderers and rapists, traitors to the crown and the occasional deserter. But she lets druids and sorcerers live in peace, ignoring those few who come to accuse their neighbors of using magic.

Her father was wrongfully executed. Her closest friend was driven into madness. Her husband's savior had to live in secret. She won't have any more evil be born out of Uther's bottomless hatred.

 

One day the great dragon is found lying dead in a clearing just outside the city walls.

His carcass is a mountain of flesh and scales, cold and liveless.

Gwen thinks of the fire he breathed, of the people he killed, of how majectic he looked against the backdrop of the night sky.

She marvels a little that this mighty beast would return to the place that used to be its prison for many years, that it would still choose to die where it could gaze upon the lights and towers of Camelot.

And although she is not superstitious, a chill runs down her spine when she realizes just what kind of omen this might be, especially for a dynastasty whose crest proudly bears a golden dragon. However, the last of the Pendragons died years ago. What difference is it going to make now?

She orders her guards to bury the dragon in that very clearing, and to build a monument in its place.

 

The world changes.

One day Camelot will be in ruins. The dragon's monument will crumble and her crown will be lost. The forest will burn and the lakes dry. Her people will scatter, her rule come to an end.

Many years have passed since she came to serve at court, since she fell in a love with a prince and married a king. Many years since she had duties and responsibilities thrust upon her that far surpassed the capabilities of a blacksmith's daughter.

Yet here she sits in a throne, here she sits at a round table that symbolizes equality and justice. Here she sits, a lonely queen, widowed before her time, old beyond her years.

The world changes, but the sky is the same as the one she was born under.

People still love telling stories.

There was a bard from beyond the borders who brought with him songs of King Arthur's great deeds, of his gentle-born Queen Guinevere, of his court sorcerer Merlin.

The details may change, but the core remains.

Sometime in the future they will only be a faint memory. Sometime they may turn into a secret, a legend, a lie. This day is not now.

If their lives were written in destiny, their names may as well be carved in time.

 

He comes to her when her end is near.

He does not appear as a grizzled man or a toothless crone. His hair is as dark as she remembers it, but much longer, though his face remains smooth of lines and beard.

And yet he is old to her, age in his eyes and in his smile and in the way he moves to sit beside her bedstead. And when he opens his mouth to speak, there is wisdom and sorrow and regret in his voice.

"I should have stayed with you," he laments, "It was selfish of me to leave your side."

"No," she murmurs and presses the back of his hand against her dry lips. His skin is unblemished and cool like marble.

"Forgive me," he says and he is trembling, "Please, forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive," she answers, "You gave us more than we ever knew. Without you..."

It remains unspoken. Without him so many things would never have come to pass. Their stories would have ended before they had even begun.

"Still," he insists, "He would have wanted me to be by your side."

"You were by his side. Throughout his life and in his very last moments," she says because she knows it to be true, "And now you are here in mine."

"I've made so many mistakes," he tells her and she gently shakes her head, "We all have, you silly boy. We all have."

"I wish I had never kept it secret," he admits, "I wish you all had known before it was too late."

"It was never too late. And I never blamed you."

For a moment they sit in silence.

"Let me see," she begs then, curious despite it all, "Just once."

He inclines his head and a moment later the candle flickers, its golden shine reflected in his eyes. Or maybe it's the other way round. He breathes a word that sounds foreign and rough and strangely thrilling, and the flame grows and dances and suddenly forms a face.

It's a face that on some days she believes to have forgotten, a face that used to be so famliar under her gaze, her kisses, her fingertips.

"Oh," she says and with a tiny gasp she realizes that her cheeks are wet with the tears she never allowed herself to cry. All those years she had to be strong and gentle, tough like leather and perfect like silk.

Now she is thread-bare, a bonedeep exhaustion that has settled in her entire being. Her eyes are heavy, but her heart had grown lighter that she ever remember it being.

"I'm sorry," he repeats and she squeezes his hands with the last of her strength, "I should have saved him."

"But you did," she whispers, "Many, many times you saved him. You saved all of us.“

"And yet here I am," he replies and she searches in vain for the boy who challenged a prince, the boy whom she met in the stocks, cabbage in his hair and a grin on his face.

"Here you are," she echoes, "And that is all I could ever ask for."

"Thank you, Merlin," she whispers and doesn't see him flinch because her eye lids are slipping shut against her will, "Thank you."

She will never know that these were the very words his king once spoke to him. She will never see him weep.

He sits by her side until sunrise and leaves to the bells sounding the news over the town.

He doesn't look back. Now that Gwen is dead, Camelot will fall. King and queen, knight and healer, their graves of fire and water, earth and stone scattered across the land, their ashes in the wind, their bones buried in dirt.

Once he came to this city, never knowing what awaited him. Now that he leaves, it's just the same and so much worse.

Merlin never returns.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Carved in Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4653618) by [kirakiraakira13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirakiraakira13/pseuds/kirakiraakira13)




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